Rising India and Indian Communities in East Asia

K Kesavapany, A Mani and P Ramasamy

Publication Year: 2008

This edited volume containing thirty-five chapters focuses on three main contemporary issues: the phenomenon of "new Indians" in the past five decades, the impact of rising India on settled Indian communities, and the recent migrants. By examining these interrelated aspects, this study seeks to address questions like: what does "Rising India" mean to Indian communities in East Asia? How are members of Indian communities responding to India’s rise? Will India pay greater attention to people of Indian origin? And last but not least, will Indians in East Asia identify themselves with their ancestral land or view such identification as problematic?

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

List of Tables

List of Figures

Preface

The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) published a major work,
Indian Communities in Southeast Asia, edited by the late Professor K.S. Sandhu
and Professor A. Mani in the early 1990s. That study provided an extensive
treatment of Indians in various Southeast...

The Editors

The Contributors

K. Anbalakan is Senior Lecturer in history at the School of Humanities,
Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang. His research areas are: Indian
nationalism, social, political and economic history of Malaysia, identity
construction among Malaysian...

REGIONAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

1. India and Indians in East Asia: An Overview

Indians have been trading with East and Southeast Asia since ancient times.
From the 1860s down to the early twentieth century, the traders were joined
by large numbers of labourers who went out, or were sent out, largely to
work in the plantations...

2. Indians and the Colonial Diaspora

Indian migration in the colonial period is chiefly identified with the massive
exportation of labour throughout the British Empire, in the hundred years
after the abolition of slavery. The figures, in order of numerical importance,
are approximately as follows: Ceylon...

3. The Movement of Indians in East Asia: Contemporary and Historical Encounters

In recent years qualitative and quantitative changes in Indian migration
have gained the increasing attention of researchers, policymakers and
organizations such as the World Bank (WB), the International Labour
Office (ILO) and the International...

4. Community Formations among Indians in East Asia

East Asia, for purposes of this chapter, is defined as including Southeast Asia,
China, Hong Kong, Korean Peninsula and Japan. The association between
the Indian sub-continent and East Asia is historical...

5. India and Southeast Asia in the Context of India's Rise

For a brief period in the late 1940s and early 1950s, India showed a robust
interest in drawing close to its Southeast Asian neighbours. But this trend
did not last very long. Despite their geographical proximity, India and the
regional states drifted...

6. India's Engagement with East Asia

India has been engaged with East Asia throughout its history. The depth of
this engagement has been very profound. Even if we look only at the last two
thousand years, it becomes clear how intensely it has been engaged with the
East Asian region...

7. India's Economic Engagement with East Asia: Trends and Prospects

The Indian economic performance in the recent years has been attracting
widespread attention. With over 8 per cent growth sustained over the past few
years and robust outlook for the future, India is emerging as a growth driver
for the Asian and the world economy...

8. Brand India and East Asia

The surging Indian economy has sustained growth of 6 to 8 per cent over
the last few years and all things Indian seems to be in current vogue. Is
India finally shaking the perception of a developing country that is more
famous for social inequality and religious...

9. Japan-India Relations: A Time for Sea Change?

In his book, Towards a Beautiful Country, published in July 2006, Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe has devoted three pages to Japan-India relations.1
Recognizing the enormous potential of emerging India, he states in the
book that, “it is of crucial importance...

10. Indian Interactions in East Asia

Professor Wang Gungwu’s comments in this volume not only provide a
brilliant overview of the historical perspective of the Indian diaspora but
also set the tone for a comparative basis in dealing with this phenomenon by
frequently referring to China...

COUNTRY PERSPECTIVES

BRUNEI DARUSSALAM

11. A Century of Contributions by Indians in Negara Brunei Darussalam

The number of Indians in Brunei Darussalam has been growing steadily
since 1906, when Britain extended its protection over the shrinking
sultanate. In that year a Pathan and a Sikh were seconded from Malaya for
police duty in Brunei town...

CHINA

12. China: Indians' New-found Land

The cultural relations between India and China can be traced back to very
early times. There are numerous references to China in Sanskrit texts, but
their chronology is vague. The Mahabharata refers to China several times.
Also, the Arthasastra and...

13. Blue-collar Indians: Imperceptible Yet Important in Hong Kong

The entrepreneurial success of some Indians in Hong Kong is a fabulous
story (Das 1990; Kwok and Narain 2003; Vaid 1972; White 1994). On the
occasion of the 58th Republic Day of India in 2007, B.K. Gupta, Consul-
General of India in Hong Kong...

INDONESIA

14. Indians in a Rapidly Transforming Indonesia

The political, social and economic fabric of Indonesia has undergone
rapid transformation since 1998. The transition to democracy under
four presidents, a vociferous demand for more voice and freedom, rising
expectations, an Islamic resurgence and the tumultuous...

JAPAN

15. Indians in Tokyo and its Vicinity

“Rising India” paints a country of more than one billion people, with rapid
economic development, and well-known for IT and biotechnology. Many
IT engineers have moved from India to other countries including Japan.
In Japan Indians who work...

16. The Indian Community in Kobe: Diasporic Identity and Network

This chapter, while focusing on links to a wider transnational network,
analyses a community of Indians in Kobe, Japan.1 Here, the term “Indians
in Kobe” will be used to denote the group of affluent Indians who identify
themselves as part of an established...

CAMBODIA, LAOS AND VIETNAM

17. Rising India and Indians in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam

Among the countries of Southeast Asia, the three Indochina countries have
the least number of Indians. Interestingly these countries were exposed to
the Indian culture as early as the beginning of the Christian era, though
their contact with India had declined after the thirteenth...

KOREA

18. Indians in Korea

Korea is located in Eastern Asia, bordering Russia, China and Japan between
the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. Korea was an independent kingdom
for much of the past millennia. Following its victory in the Russo-Japanese
War in 1905, Japan occupied Korea...

MALAYSIA

19. A Critical Review of Indian Economic Performance and Priorities for Action

This chapter deals with the relative deterioration in the economic performance
of the Indian community in the post-1970 period and the priorities for
remedial action. The year 1970 marked the launch of the Malaysian
government’s New Economic Policy...

20. Politics of Indian Representation in Malaysia

Formal political representation in the ruling coalition of the Barisan
Nasional or National Front (BN) is organized on the basis of ethnicity.
Such a principle is not something unique to Malaysia. There are many other
societies that follow this method. However, not all ethnically...

21. Indians in Malaysia: Towards Vision 2020

Malaysia saw robust economic growth from the late 1980s, bringing general
prosperity and a new confidence among large sections of the populace.
Divisive debates over lingering ethnic issues were submerged in the “feelgood”
environment of the 1990s...

22. Tamil School Education in Malaysia: Challenges and Prospects in the New Millenium

It may come as a surprise that as of 2007, the Tamil school education in
Malaysia would have completed its 190 years of existence. That itself is a saga
of a remarkable tenacity and durable relevance in an inhospitable environment,
to the surprise of many...

23. Socio-economic Self-help among Indians in Malaysia

Self-help refers to any collective effort by a group experiencing the urge for
self improvement. It could be for economic uplift, educational improvement,
or to address social issues or even to safeguard and strengthen cultural and
religious rights. The effort, usually, is the result of a consciousness...

24. Ethnic Clashes, Squatters, and Historicity in Malaysia

While attending a small function in Puchong during the summer of
2006, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, and in a neighbourhood populated mainly
by working-class Tamils, this author was told by a middle-aged Tamil man,
“Every Indian is burning inside...

25. Indian Hindu Resurgence in Malaysia

The current ethnic Indian population of Malaysia may be traced to two
major streams of immigration throughout the period of British colonialism;
namely, the overwhelming majority who were recruited under various labour
schemes to provide a low-skilled workforce...

MYANMAR

26. Indians in Myanmar

Myanmar is located where the Chinese and Indian civilizations meet.
Cultural interaction between Myanmar with China and India enriched
Myanmar culture. Both Myanmar and India shared colonial rule. The
British brought in Indians to expand rice production, but the Indians
never intended to settle permanently...

PHILIPPINES

27. The Indian Community in Metro Manila: Continuities, Changes, and Effects of Rising India

While newspapers and magazines talk excitedly about the rise of India
— whether it be the spread of Bollywood, its foremost status in the
information technology (IT) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
sectors, corporate takeovers by Non-Resident Indians of top companies, or
its 400 million middle class...

28. Contemporary Indian Communities in Western Visayas

The genesis of migration lies in dissatisfaction with the contemporary
environment. Disparity of opportunity becomes the major motive force
behind migration, whether this is to enjoy levels of living in terms of
income or the physical or social...

SINGAPORE

29. From Mandalas to Microchips: The Indian Imprint on the Construction of Singapore

The classical Indian influence on Southeast Asia was a largely benign one.
According to G. Coedes in The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, Indians
“nowhere engaged in military conquest and annexation in the name of a
state or mother country”. The Indian kingdoms that emerged in “Farther
India” enjoyed only ties of tradition...

Southeast Asia has witnessed migrations from the Indian sub-continent and
China, and is culturally influenced by Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, and Islamic
doctrines, ideologies, art, religion and philosophy of both regions. Malaysia
and Singapore contain pockets...

31. The Role of the Singapore Indian Development Association (SINDA) in Uplifting the Educational Performance of Indian Students

The mission of the Singapore Indian Development Association (SINDA)
is to raise the educational standards of Indian students. But education does
not and cannot work in isolation. To uplift the educational performance of
an entire community, one needs to go beyond...

32. Singapore's New Indians: Attracting Indian Foreign Talent to Singapore

On 7 March 2001, Time.Com of Time Magazine, referred to Indians living
overseas as the “Golden Diaspora”.1 In that article they were acknowledged for
running FORTUNE 500 companies, as prominent consultants and security
analysts but “above all, they are bringing...

33. The Changing Indian Performing Arts Scene in Singapore

The underlying multi-cultural diversity of India has always made it difficult
to describe or develop an Indian cultural identity. It is this diversity that
makes the rich and intricate tapestry of India so very unique, fascinating
and embraceable. To understand it one has to recognize and appreciate the
individual strands of culture...

TAIWAN

During most of the 1980s, for stringent political reasons Taiwan and
India did not perceive each other as economic partners. Indian socialist
economy then could not effectively respond to outside market dynamics.
Under such a context, economic development was not the top priority
for India and opportunity...

THAILAND

35. INDIANS IN THAILAND

Thailand and India have been in contact economically, socially and culturally
since the early formation of the Thai Kingdom of Sukhothai in the 13th
Century A.D. The similarity between Thai script and some South Indian
scripts, the belief in Buddhism, Indian words and place...

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